Gender

No matter how much I’ve read and heard about gender issues, no matter how well prepared I thought I was to deal with the fact that working in a developing country as a woman was going to be more difficult, no matter how many times VSO have told me that Gender is an issue that needs to be addressed in all placements – I don’t think I ever really appreciated the reality of it.

I think until you're actually sitting in a workshop group where the male contributions seem to be more valid than those from the women, until you’ve been overlooked for the tenth time by someone who seems only interested in speaking to your husband, I don’t think you can appreciate the paralysing frustration and powerlessness that it creates. And, of course, these are only very minor instances.

I’d accepted the practicalities of working within a culture where gender might be a bigger issue than in my own; I had understood that I may need to talk to the women in my organisation differently than the men (I know that’s an Americanism, but I actually think it’s pretty useful – can anyone offer a British version that isn’t horribly clunky?) and that I may need to be strategic in my communications. But – having never been faced with gender discrimination of any kind back home (other than pub talk which I've shouted down!) – I wasn’t prepared for the strength of emotional reaction I’m having to it. It’s sheer bloody anger. And not just at the injustice of it, but at the fact that I’m not in a position to challenge or fight it. Well, not yet.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying there’s black and white, right and wrong here. It’s a different cultural framework and, in some instances, there are firmly held religious beliefs which determine how a man interacts with a woman (perhaps particularly in front of her husband). But – I am increasingly grateful for the fact that – my own cultural background and upbringing means that even the slightest hint that I am in any way lesser than a man makes my blood boil. 

I look forward to learning tolerance.